Instagram Stories

I am a late adopter when it comes to Instagram Stories – mainly, because I thought it was Instagram taking a cheap shot at Snapchat at winning the app war. But whatever, it’s not my fight so hey, I’m using Instagram for my 24hour posts. I like the non-committal fun that comes with it. Basically, I see something and if I like it, I post it. And bam, it’s there for everyone to see. Fun!

But it dawned on me in recent weeks though that I didn’t like the crap I was posting. :-\

I also realized it was taking my focus from sharpening my shooting and editing skills – something that constantly strive to do. I made a decision to only include photos I was happy with in my Stories (which pretty much means no more off-the-cuff shots from my iPhone), but before I could put my plan into action, I came across Jesse Driftwood’s account and since his bio says “Over the top Instagram Stories” I had to check it out. Yup, over the top indeed. And so awesome. (Seriously, check out his Stories.)

So in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been keeping my phone away and pulling out Daphne to shoot both photos and videos. I’m totally having a ball.

Having a story arc with your Stories. (What an idea, eh?) At the very least, make sure your Stories are in sequential order, so that it makes sense to your followers

As far as video goes, if you are starting out try to keep your Stories short. Like super short. I’m staying in a 10-20 second range because I think that’s pretty much the attention span most of us have

Edit edit edit. If I’m posting a video from my phone, I trim the video down as much as I can to keep the core message – nothing else. Otherwise, I develop the story arc using Adobe Premiere

Occasional randomness is still appreciated. I mean, that is what Stories is intended for 🙂